Robert Longo (born January 7, 1953) is an American artist, filmmaker, photographer and musician.
Longo became first well known in the 1980s for his ''Men in the Cities'' drawing and print series, which depict sharply dressed men and women writhing in contorted emotion.
He lives in New York and
East Hampton.
[Jonathan Griffin (December 5, 2020)]
Artist Robert Longo: 'Taking down statues was one of America's greatest moments'
''Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
''.[Maximilíano Durón (May 13, 2021)]
Pictures Generation Star Robert Longo Heads to Pace Gallery After Metro Pictures's Closure
''ARTnews
''ARTnews'' is an American art magazine, based in New York City. It covers visual arts from ancient to contemporary times. It is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. ''ARTnews'' has a readership of 180,000 in 124 co ...
''.
Early life and education
Longo was born in 1953 in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, New York, and raised in
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...
. During his childhood he had a fascination with
mass media
Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication.
Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises b ...
; movies, television, magazines, and
comic books
A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...
, which continue to influence his art.
Longo began college at the
University of North Texas
The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public university, public research university located in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Its main campus is in Denton, Texas, Denton, with a satellite campus in Frisco, Texas, Frisco. It serves as the ...
, in the town of
Denton, but left before earning a degree. He later studied sculpture under Leonda Finke, who encouraged him to pursue a career in the visual arts. In 1972, Longo received a grant to study at the
Accademia di Belle Arti in
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
, Italy. Upon his return to New York, Longo enrolled at
Buffalo State College
The State University of New York Buffalo State University (colloquially referred to as Buffalo State University, SUNY Buffalo State, Buffalo State, or simply Buff State) is a public college, public university in Buffalo, New York. It is part of ...
, where he received a
BFA in 1975. While at Buffalo State, he studied under art professor Joseph Piccillo. At this time he was in a romantic relationship with artist
Cindy Sherman
Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters.
Her breakthrough work is often co ...
, who was also studying art at Buffalo State.
While in college, Longo and friends established a
contemporary art
Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...
gallery in their
co-op building called the Essex Art Center, which eventually became
Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center. Through his gallery efforts, Longo met many local and New York City artists and eventually moved to New York City to participate in the
No Wave
No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and r ...
art scene of the late-1970s and befriended artists and critics involved with the journal ''
Effects: Magazine for New Art Theory''.
Work
Drawing
Although he studied sculpture, drawing remained Longo's favorite form of self-expression. However, the sculptural influence pervades his drawing technique, as Longo's "portraits" have a distinctive chiseled line that seems to give the drawings a three-dimensional quality. Longo uses graphite like clay, molding it to create images like the writhing, dancing figures in his seminal ''Men in the Cities'' series.
For that series, Longo photographed his friends lurching backward, collapsing forward or sprawled on invisible pavement. After enlarging the pictures through a projector, he and an artist assistant drew them in sizes ranging from three-quarter scale to larger than life-size. In the process, Longo often dramatized poses and always standardized attire into quite formal, black-and-white clothing.
[Suzanne Muchnic (March 31, 1986)]
Art Review : Constant Lure Of Longo's 'Men'
''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
''. The idea for this work came, in 1975, from a still image in
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (; 31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982), sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker, dramatist and actor. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of the New German Cinema moveme ...
's film ''The American Soldier''.
According to art critic William Wilson of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'', the pictures recall nothing so much as the final scene in
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film and theatre director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential film directors of all time, his films have been described as "profoun ...
's ''
The Seventh Seal
''The Seventh Seal'' () is a 1957 Swedish historical fantasy film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set in Sweden during the Black Death, it tells of the journey of a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) and a game of chess he plays with the p ...
''.
[William Wilson (October 1, 1989)]
Robert Longo: Too Much Too Soon?
''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
''. About four years passed before Longo turned the vision of a man shot in the back into a monumental series of drawings. He produced about 60 ''Men in the Cities'' between 1979 and 1982.
One drawing from this series was used as the album cover to
Glenn Branca
Glenn Branca (October 6, 1948 – May 13, 2018) was an American avant-garde music, avant-garde composer, guitarist, and luthier. Known for his use of volume, scordatura, alternative guitar tunings, minimal music, repetition, drone (music), dronin ...
's album
''The Ascension''. As a consequence, in his 30s, Longo was among the most widely publicized, exhibited and collected artists of the 1980s along with the likes of
Cindy Sherman
Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters.
Her breakthrough work is often co ...
and
David Salle
David Salle (born September 28, 1952; last name pronounced "Sally") is an American Postmodern painter, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer. Salle was born in Norman, Oklahoma, and lives and works in East Hampton, New York. He earned a B ...
.
However, several critics have commented that Longo had lost his way as a visual artist by the mid-'80s.
Working on themes of power and authority, Longo produced a series of blackened American flags ("Black Flags" 1989–91) as well as oversized hand guns (''Bodyhammers'' 1993–95). From 1995 to 1996 he worked on his ''Magellan'' project, 366 drawings (one per day) that formed an archive of the artist's life and surrounding cultural images. "Magellan" was followed by 2002's ''Freud Drawings'', which reinterpreted
Edmund Engelman's famous documentary images of
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...
's flat, moments before his flight from the
Nazis
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
. In 2002 and 2004 he presented ''Monsters'',
Bernini
Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (, ; ; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 1598 – 28 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor ...
-esque renderings of massive breaking waves and ''The Sickness of Reason'', baroque renderings of atomic bomb blasts. "Robert Longo: Monsters showed at
Metro Pictures
Metro Pictures Corporation was a Film, motion picture production company founded in early 1915 in Jacksonville, Florida. It was a forerunner of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The company produced its films in New York, Los Angeles, and sometimes at le ...
in New York City from September 21-October 26, 2002. ''Monsters'' was included in the 2004
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...
.
To create works such as ''Barbara and Ralph'', Longo projects photographs of his subjects onto paper and traces the figures in graphite, removing all details of the background. After he records the basic contours, his long-time illustrator, Diane Shea, works on the figure for about a week, filling in the details. Next, Longo goes back into the drawing, using graphite and charcoal to provide "all the cosmetic work". Longo continues to work on the drawing, making numerous adjustments until it is completed about a week later.
In March 2013, ''The Lexander Magazine'' reviewed Longo's 1982–83
diptych
A diptych (, ) is any object with two flat plates which form a pair, often attached by a hinge. For example, the standard notebook and school exercise book of the ancient world was a diptych consisting of a pair of such plates that contained a ...
entitled ''Pressure'', highlighting it as the "penultimate visual
anthem
An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to sho ...
of the era," expanding upon Neal Benezra's 1988 analysis of the work as having been "the most representative work of art of the 1980s."
The artist's ''Engines of State'' series (made between 2012 and 2019) was given to the
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...
in 2023 by
Clifford Ross.
Music videos
In the 1980s, Longo directed several music videos, including
New Order's "
Bizarre Love Triangle
"Bizarre Love Triangle" is a song by English rock band New Order, released as a single in November 1986 from their fourth studio album, '' Brotherhood'' (1986), which reached the top five on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play Singles chart, an ...
",
Megadeth
Megadeth is an American thrash metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1983 by vocalist and guitarist Dave Mustaine. Known for their technically complex guitar work and musicianship, Megadeth is one of the "big four" of American thrash metal—alo ...
's "
Peace Sells
"Peace Sells" is a song by American thrash metal band Megadeth from their 1986 album '' Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?'', written by Dave Mustaine. The song was released as the band's second ever single in November 1986. "Peace Sells" was th ...
" and "
The One I Love" by
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American alternative rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. One of the fir ...
He is responsible for the front covers of
Glenn Branca
Glenn Branca (October 6, 1948 – May 13, 2018) was an American avant-garde music, avant-garde composer, guitarist, and luthier. Known for his use of volume, scordatura, alternative guitar tunings, minimal music, repetition, drone (music), dronin ...
's ''
The Ascension'' from 1981 and
The Replacements' 1985 album ''
Tim.''
Film and television
In 1992, Longo directed an episode of ''
Tales from the Crypt'' entitled "This'll Kill Ya". He also directed the
cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting said to focus on a combination of "low-life and high tech". It features futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberwa ...
film ''
Johnny Mnemonic'', starring
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Charles Reeves ( ; born September 2, 1964) is a Canadian actor and musician. The recipient of numerous accolades in a career on screen spanning four decades, he is known for his leading roles in action films, his amiable public imag ...
,
Dolph Lundgren
Hans "Dolph" Lundgren (, ; born 3 November 1957) is a Swedish actor, filmmaker, and martial artist. Lundgren made his acting debut in 1985 with a cameo in the List of James Bond films, James Bond film ''A View to a Kill''. Also that year, he h ...
and
Takeshi Kitano
, also known as in Japan, is a Japanese comedian, actor, and filmmaker. While he is known primarily as a comedian and TV host in his native Japan, he is better known abroad for his work as a filmmaker and actor as well as TV host.
During hi ...
, and a short film named ''Arena Brains''. At the time, Longo was quoted as saying, "making a painting is one thing, but making a film kicks your ass." During the late 1980s and early 1990s Longo developed a number of performance art theatre pieces, such as ''Marble Fog'' and ''Killing Angels'', collaborating with Stuart Argabright, the guitarist
Chuck Hammer and
Douglas Sloan.
Music
Longo was the leader and guitarist of a musical act called ''Robert Longo's Menthol Wars'', which performed
no wave
No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and r ...
experimental music in New York rock clubs in the late 1970s, such as
Tier 3. Members of the band included
Richard Prince
Richard Prince (born August 6, 1949) is an American painter and photographer. In the mid-1970s, Prince made drawings and painterly collages that he has since disowned. His image ''Untitled (Cowboy)'', a photographic reproduction of a photograph ...
and David Linton. ''Menthol Wars'' also was part of a series of three staple-bound paperback books by Richard Prince published during 1980 by
Printed Matter, Inc.
During the same period, Longo also performed with
Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham (born September 19, 1952) is an American composer, guitarist, trumpet player, multi-instrumentalist (flutes in C, alto and bass, keyboard), primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orche ...
in Chatham's ''Guitar Trio'' and produced a series of slowly fading slides entitled ''Pictures for Music'' which was projected behind the musicians.
Photography
Commissioned by Italian luxury label
Bottega Veneta
Bottega Veneta S.r.l () is an Italian luxury fashion house based in Milan, Italy. Its product lines include ready-to-wear, handbags, shoes, accessories, jewellery and fragrances.
Bottega Veneta is headquartered in Milan, Italy, with its main at ...
, Longo photographed models Terron Wood and Alla K for the brand's fall/winter 2010 advertisements, evoking memories of the dancing silhouettes of his ''Men in the Cities'' series.
Exhibitions
Longo has had retrospective exhibitions at Hamburger Kunstverein and Deichtorhallen,
Menil Collection
The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs a ...
in Houston, the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum).
LACMA was founded in 1961 ...
in 1989, the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art art gallery, museum near Water Tower Place in the Near North Side, Chicago, Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is on ...
in 1990, Hartford Athenaeum, The Isetan Museum of Art in Tokyo, and a ''Survey Exhibition 1980–2009'', at
Musée d'art moderne et d'art contemporain
The Musée d'art moderne et d'art contemporain (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), also known as MAMAC, is a museum dedicated to modern art and contemporary art. It opened on 21 June 1990, in Nice, France.
Location
The Museum is located nea ...
in Nice France in 2009 and at
Museu Colecção Berardo in Lisbon, Portugal in 2010.In 2002 Robert Longo exhibited "Monsters" at Metro Pictures.
Group exhibitions include
Documenta
Documenta (often stylized documenta) is an Art exhibition, exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany.
Documenta was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgarte ...
VIII, the
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...
, and the
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
. His photorealistic charcoal drawings were featured in the exhibition ''Proof'' at the Brooklyn Museum in 2017 alongside works by
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...
and
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein; (11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, film editor and film theorist. Considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, he was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is no ...
. exhibited at the Louisiana in Denmark in 2025
Influence
Longo's work from the ''Men in the Cities'' series was prominently displayed in the apartment of fictional character
Patrick Bateman in the film ''
American Psycho
''American Psycho'' is a black comedy horror novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the First-person narrative, first-person by Patrick Bateman, a wealthy, narcissistic, and vain Manhattan investmen ...
'' (2000).
In 2013, Longo's artwork was featured in an article in the men's magazine ''Man of the World'', along with an article discussing his life and career.
Art market
Longo is represented by
Pace Gallery
The Pace Gallery is a contemporary and modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide. It was founded in Boston by Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son, Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, London, Hong Kong, ...
(since 2021) and
Thaddaeus Ropac.
Personal life
Longo lived with artist
Cindy Sherman
Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters.
Her breakthrough work is often co ...
from 1974 to 1980. He lived with artist
Gretchen Bender
Gretchen Bender (1951 in Seaford, Delaware – December 19, 2004 in New York City) was an American artist who worked in film, video, and photography. She was from the so-called 1980s Pictures Generation of artists, which included Cindy She ...
from 1981 to 1989. Longo married German actress
Barbara Sukowa in 1994. Together they have three sons: Hans Longo, Viktor Longo, and Joseph Longo. On May 21, 2022, Longo married Sophie Chahinian, founder of the Artist Profile Archive, in Los Angeles.
Longo moved to Europe in 1990, living for a few years in Paris and working in Spain and Germany. He lives in New York and East Hampton.
When the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
forced the
Guild Hall of East Hampton to cancel its 2021 summer gala and auction, Longo volunteered to postpone his own summer exhibition at the space and spearhead a $1 million benefit show in its stead.
[Hilarie M. Sheets (July 23, 2021)]
Robert Longo rallies artists to donate $1m worth of art for Guild Hall benefit show
�''The Art Newspaper
''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments i ...
''.
Literature
* Heinz-Norbert Jocks: ''Robert Longo. Das Poetische für mich ist eine höhere Form der Gerechtigkeit'', Interview from Heinz-Norbert Jocks'', in:
Kunstforum International, Nr. 273, Cologne 2021, p. 192–211.
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Longo, Robert
20th-century American painters
American male painters
21st-century American painters
21st-century American male artists
Buffalo State College alumni
University of North Texas alumni
20th-century American sculptors
20th-century American male artists
21st-century American sculptors
American male sculptors
American contemporary painters
Postmodern artists
1953 births
Living people
American music video directors
20th-century American printmakers
American people of Italian descent
20th-century American photographers
21st-century American photographers
Film directors from New York City